A novel link-based approach for measuring walking accessibility

Abstract

In this study, we develop a link-based walking accessibility measure considering the impacts of seven street-level walking attributes, including sidewalk, footbridge, staircase, at-grade crosswalk, tunnel, ramp, and escalators. The link-based recursive logit model is adopted to investigate pedestrians’ walking path choice problem. The calibrated model parameters are used in a link-based approach for measuring walking accessibility. This link-based approach does not require knowledge of the path sets, and hence can provide an unbiased accessibility assessment independent of path choice generation. We apply this approach to analyze the performance of walking accessibility to the Kwun Tong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station in Hong Kong as a case study. The proposed approach can be used as a practical tool to identify areas with deficient walking accessibility that need improvement and to forecast the expected outcome of any improvement schemes without bias.